Annual Book Prize

Since 2014, Permafrost Magazine has held an Annual Book Prize contest for the best manuscript (genre alternating each year). The winner of the contest receives $1000.00 and publication through the University of Alaska Press. Each year, the book prize genre alternates through poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

The final judge will be Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and Alaska writer Eowyn Ivey. Permafrost editorial staff as well as select outside readers serve as the preliminary judges. Winner receives publication of their full-length manuscript and $1000. The submission period opens on June 1, 2024, and closes on October 1 at midnight, Alaska Standard Time. We plan to announce the finalists by January, and the winner by March.

Guidelines:

• Submissions should be approximately 150-300 double-spaced pages (45,000 - 90,000 words). Please note that these numbers are intended as a guide, and not a mandate. We are more interested in the quality of the work than adherence to a page or word count. 
• The reading fee is $25. 
• All fiction sub-genres (novels, short story collections, novella collections, or any combination of those forms) are eligible. 
• We only accept original manuscripts; AI-generated or AI-supported works are not accepted.
• Do not include your name anywhere on the actual manuscript
• Please include a brief bio in the “cover letter” section of Submittable
• It is fine to include acknowledgements of previously published stories, novellas or novel excerpts.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine and encouraged. Please let us know immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere
• Current and former University of Alaska Fairbanks and University of Alaska Press employees, current and former UAF students, and anyone who has served as an editor or reader for Permafrost whether for journal submissions or the book prize may not submit to the contest. Previous winners of the prize are also ineligible.

About the Judge

Eowyn (pronounced A-o-win) LeMay Ivey was raised in Alaska and continues to live there with her husband and two daughters. She worked for nearly a decade as a bookseller at independent Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska, and prior to that as a reporter for the local newspaper, The Frontiersman.

Her new novel, To the Bright Edge of the World, will be released August 2. Her debut novel, The Snow Child, was a New York Times bestseller published in more than 25 languages. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a UK National Book Award winner, an Indies Choice award for debut fiction, and a PNBA Book Award winner.

Eowyn’s essays and short fiction have appeared in London’s Observer Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, Sunday Express Magazine, Woman & Home Magazine, the anthology Cold Flashes, the North Pacific Rim literary journal Cirque, FiveChapters, and Alaska Magazine.

Most Recent Winners by Genre